puff, pant, gasp, wheeze...

[dchenes]

I have a TV stand, which is a good thing. My TV no longer lives on the ironing board and threatens to tip over.

However, getting the TV stand home in the first place was a gold-plated cast iron pain in the ass. First of all, the stand has no wheels. Second, I had to borrow a dolly from the thrift shop and wheel the whole works home, up and down a couple of hills, twenty minutes one way. Then I couldn't get the dolly up the doorstep, so I dragged the TV stand into the living room and went twenty minutes back to return the dolly. Then I got to walk twenty minutes back home again. At least it didn't rain, which it's been threatening to do since I started this trip this morning. And at least I don't have any classes on Fridays.

I have now had all of my classes once each. The only one that doesn't make me want to curl up in a ball every time I think about what it entails is the one I had last night, which was Practice in French Translation. For once, being the only native English speaker in the class is going to work in my favor, since we're translating into English. Semiotics, which I thought was going to be interesting, is incomprehensible. I should have expected that, since it's cross-listed under Philosophy. But ye gods, if I started going on about the firstness of thirdness, you'd lock me in a padded room, right? So why is the guy who goes on about it called a philosophical genius, and why do I have to agree with that opinion?

Sorry. It's just that I'm looking at having to write a 20-page paper in Semiotics, and if it's all like that, I'm going to have to get therapy afterward. The idea of studying signs as communication fascinates me, but the philosophy and the science of studying signs as communication seem to come from left field somewhere.

I think I'm out of sorts today for no particular reason. Blah.

Comments

[scirocco.livejournal.com]

Look up Donald Thomas, expert in Semiotics. He's been teaching at BHS, I took a semiotics course with him in 1989. "Difficult" was a good word for it, but there's so much to be said about Semiotics, I expect 20 pages shouldn't be too hard.

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

Let me guess... Peirce?

[dchenes.livejournal.com]

Got it in one. I'm supposed to be reading Saussure, too, but at least I've run across him before. Peirce gives me headaches.

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

Let me know if you run across any text that helps explain him better. Fascinating ideas - really hard to grok.

[dchenes.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's what I should write my term paper on: What He Said Was X, What He Meant Was Y...Peirce in Plain English.

Ye gods, that's pretentious. Hee hee!

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

no, it'd sell really well. Actually you might look for those series that boil down authors into the essentials, if I can think of the name, I'll let you know.

OH NO, NOT THIS AGAIN

[whuffle.livejournal.com]

Semiotics. oye! Talk to Juliruge about semiotics. And don't bother trying to look up Donald Thomas. While he was a wonderful teacher (I had him too Scirocco) he doesn't teach any more. Last I heard he had retired from his second job as a headmaster at Boston University Academy and was living on an island in the Caribbean. (Really, No Joke.)